


Better to Give

by Laylah



Series: Tales of Coffeehouse [6]
Category: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-21
Updated: 2010-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-07 10:59:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finals are over now, and tomorrow she'll be catching a train back to New York to spend the holidays with her family, but tonight -- once Asch's shift is over -- they're planning to spend the evening together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better to Give

It's looking like they might have a white Christmas this year, at the rate they're going. Well, in the city it'll probably be more like a gray-brown Christmas, snow churning to ugly slush on the street outside. At least the weather keeps people from going anywhere, so the coffeehouse hasn't been too busy.

"And stay out," Asch mutters as the latest hipster jackass takes his cup of burned coffee and slouches out the door. From the one comfortable chair -- the one they only bring out when they're making an exception for someone -- Natalia laughs just a little bit, so he can barely hear it. When he looks up, she's smiling at him. Finals are over now, and tomorrow she'll be catching a train back to New York to spend the holidays with her family, but tonight -- once Asch's shift is over -- they're planning to spend the evening together. Asch glances up at the clock. Yuri found it in a novelty store somewhere; it has no numbers on it and the hands move backward. But it's still readable, if you know what you're looking at.

"What are you doing still here, anyway?" Yuri asks, leaning on the perpetually half-empty pastry display.

Asch glares at him suspiciously. "Working the closing shift," he says.

Yuri snorts. "It's dead in here. Go home." He glances over at Natalia, then back at Asch.

"I don't need your pity!" Asch snaps. He's blushing; he always blushes when he's annoyed with people.

"Good. You can't have any," Yuri says, totally unfazed. Luke would have yelled back. Yuri just lets it roll off him. "Now get out of here."

Asch looks over at Natalia again, and she's watching them hopefully, and he can't say no to anything when she looks like that. "Fine," he says. "This doesn't mean I'm covering for you on New Year's or something, though."

"I know," Yuri says. He gives them a smirk that's dangerously close to becoming a leer. "You kids have fun tonight."

"Shut up," Asch says as he grabs his coat and his bag.

The cold outside doesn't do anything to help him stop blushing, but at least it gives him a good excuse. Natalia's cheeks turn pink, too, and she squints a little into the swirling flakes as they walk away from the coffeehouse, away from the university, further south and west. Cars crawl by through the slush, and once they have to stop at a corner to wait for the trolley to lumber past, but it's not a bad walk. It's always so quiet, when snow falls.

They don't really talk while they're walking, but the silence is comfortable. That's one of the things that Asch liked about Natalia immediately; she doesn't just chatter for attention like so many of the girls he's met. She doesn't hesitate when she has something to say, but she doesn't talk just to fill space. It shows confidence, Asch thinks. She doesn't need to try so hard, and she knows it.

"What are you smiling about?" she asks, when they get to the restaurant and he reaches for the door.

"Nothing," Asch says. He ducks his head. "I'm just happy. Being here, with you."

Natalia smiles, and god, she's the most beautiful girl he's ever seen.

The restaurant is dark inside, warm, and the smell of slow-cooking spices is delicious. A few other people have braved the weather to come out for an early dinner -- one older couple who might be from the university, and a little group of the scruffy vegan punk kids the neighborhood seems full of. They're pretty quiet, though, and Asch and Natalia get seated on the other side of the room anyway.

The waiter doesn't bother to write anything down when they order -- they always seem to wind up getting the same combo, stewed lamb with side dishes of spiced eggplant and yellow split peas -- just waits, almost smiling, until Natalia adds, "Oh, and the tomato salad." Okay, so they're predictable. They know what they like, that's all.

When the waiter leaves, Asch reaches across the little table, and Natalia lays her hands in his. He's not sure where to start. They've only known each other for a semester; isn't that too soon to be all...mushy?

"I'm going to miss you over the holidays," Natalia says.

Asch's shoulders relax. "I'll miss you, too," he says. These last few weeks they've been seeing each other pretty much every day, even if it's just for a little while. "Maybe -- maybe I'll come visit." A month at home with Luke will probably drive him crazy anyway; the idea of breaking that up with a visit to Natalia in the middle makes winter break seem a lot more tolerable already.

She nods. "I'd like that," she says. She smiles. "You'll have to be prepared for my father to ask you an awful lot of questions, I'm afraid."

"I can live with that," Asch says. "It'll be worth it." He takes a deep breath. "I, um...got something for you." He pulls back so he can reach his bag, and find the envelope in there, sandwiched between two of his books. One of the corners has gotten a little bit bent, but there's not much he can do about that now. He passes it over the table.

Natalia opens it, pulls out the card inside. She smiles when she reads it -- he'd agonized over whether he was being too formal or making too many assumptions or...it's not like he knows what he's doing in situations like this. But she looks happy. And then she looks at the gift certificate that goes with it.

"They're a microfinance group," Asch explains. "They, ah, provide loans to poor women in developing countries, to help them start businesses of their own." Maybe it was a little too weird, for a first Christmas. Maybe he should have gotten her jewelry or tickets to a ballet or something. Only he read the final paper she did for her anthro class, and --

She looks up at him, and she's blinking back tears. "Asch," she says, "thank you, that's -- this is wonderful. It's so thoughtful of you."

Warmth blossoms in his chest. "I hoped you would like it," he says. "You -- you can go on their web site and keep track of where the money goes, and what the borrowers are doing with it."

"I will," Natalia says. She wipes her eyes. "I have something for you, too, though I'm afraid it won't seem original at all after this."

"I'm sure I'll like it, whatever it is," Asch says. "You always have good judgment."

She takes a moment to go through her own bag, and hands him an envelope of his own. The card inside is simple, a painting of a snowy field and a house with a warm light in the window. There's no message printed inside, just her own handwriting, wishing him a merry Christmas and telling him how glad she is that they've met. His face heats again.

Along with the card, there's a neatly folded sheet of paper, which he unfolds. "It would have seemed silly to try to buy you _things_," Natalia says. The paper is a thank-you note acknowledging a donation in his name to Amnesty International. "Of course now it seems silly that we appear to have had the same idea."

Asch ducks his head, smiling. "Thank you," he says. "It's not silly. I'm -- I'm glad we had the same idea. This...means a lot more to me than a -- a new watch or a CD from a band I won't care about next year."

Natalia nods. "I thought so," she says. She reaches for his hand, and he laces their fingers together. Really, the part where they connect like this, where they actually understand each other, is probably the best gift of all.


End file.
